The goal of this report is to look into the ethical issues surrounding collegiate athlete compensation. Although there is no clear-cut solution to this question, a deeper examination of what society considers ethical concerning the NCAA’s existing system can be extremely beneficial to the organization’s future success. The report includes an action plan based on the creation of a special department in the NCAA dealing with ethics and integrity in order to prevent future instances of student-athlete compensation issues.
The NCAA and Ethics of Paying College Athletes
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) faces a major ethical dilemma of whether to pay college athletes. Student-athletes generate a considerable income for their respective colleges, mostly football and basketball players. Some arguments focus on this issue based on the fact that college athletics has transformed into a huge revenue-earning venture (Sow, 2019). Furthermore, college athletics has an impact on the lives of its athletes, fans, and communities. The biggest question that arises from NCAA’s dilemma is whether not paying student-athletes is fair since the only form of appreciation they get is being able to get a college education. In recent events, the NCAA entered into a 14-year contract worth $10.8 billion with CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting System Inc. in 2010. The agreement is an example of how Major College Athletics has become a business for the institutions over the years.
College athletics are a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States, but the principals who act on the field or in packed stadiums around the country are complete amateurs who are, at least technically, prohibited from accepting monetary remuneration for their services. Moreover, the NCAA coaches earn salaries from training the student-athletes who play in these games. The two primary games in the NCAA, football and men’s basketball, have gained more popularity leading to an increase in the coaches’ celebrity status and their compensation packages (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015 p. 115). For example, Alabama’s coach, Nick Saban is paid over $7million per year. Universities and colleges have commercialized their athletes and programs, which led to the perception that student-athletes are the ones bringing the revenue streams.
NCAA Situational Analysis
The NCAA’s SWOT analysis highlights the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats regarding operations, finances, marketing, and overall management:
- Strengths
The NCAA’s SWOT analysis looks at the parts of the business that are operating well or better than expected. Internal pieces and components are areas over which the organization has control. The NCAA’s strengths include expanded college memberships, increased membership fees, recruiting compliance, an increase in the number of professional former NCAA players, and good brand messaging during live events.
- Weaknesses
The weaknesses identified by the situational analysis are focused on aspects that are subpar or require significant improvement. The internal pieces and components are areas under the association’s control. Poor NCAA alumni outreach, low event turnout, high event ticket prices, a limited selection of NCAA governed sports, or nonexistent brand messaging among non-sports consumer demographics are examples of NCAA weaknesses.
- Opportunities
The NCAA’s SWOT analysis focuses on organizational elements with the ability to expand operations, financial activities, and market share. In the NCAA’s present market activities, external parts and components have a role. Increased NCAA sports advertising fees, television and radio contracts, the construction of larger stadiums and sports venues, a growing economy, and recruitment liberalization, to name a few possibilities, might all benefit the NCAA.
- Threats
The risks identified by the NCAA’s SWOT analysis are those that could harm or impair the organization’s operations, financial activity, or market share. External pieces and components play a role in the NCAA’s actions in the marketplace. For example, new Federal Communications Commission broadcast regulations, a sluggish scatter market, a drop in the number of schools and universities, or a decrease in demand for athletic events, could all be challenges to the NCAA.
Ethics Decision
Carroll’s pyramid is key in making NCAA’s ethics decisions since it has to fulfil its corporate responsibility. The model has four different levels, which include economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities. Thus, the current decision will be based on this decision-making metric:
Economic responsibility
NCAA needs to be profitable enough to continue sustaining the athlete-students and their societies. Moreover, the NCAA is not a sports league but it helps to raise revenue for college athletics through activities like the joint sale of media rights (The Supreme Court of the United States, 2022, p. 7). Therefore, it would be more appropriate to continue sponsoring their education and not consider any other form of compensation as this would make them have an option of dropping out to become full-time athletes.
Legal responsibility
The member conferences of the NCAA have enforced certain regulations like enforcing rules regarding fair play in games. According to the Supreme Court’s ruling in NCAA v. Alston (The Supreme Court of the United States, 2022), there should be restrictions on the compensation of student-athletes. Therefore, there should also be rules about the compensation of the athletes in line with its ethical implications on both the communities and athletes.
Ethical responsibility
Ethically speaking, when these athletes have the choice of turning to professional sports instead of completing their education if they start earning a living at a young age. Student-athletes cannot be compensated with anything more than a scholarship because they are amateurs. Therefore, it would be rational if the student-athletes are given scholarships instead of compensating them to enable them further their education.
Philanthropic responsibility
The NCAA should support the students throughout their college and university education through scholarships. Most of these student-athletes are from low-income families (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015 p. 132). Thus, doing this will bring prosperity to them, their families and their communities.
Action Plan for the Case
The NCAA should develop a new department that regulates its ethics and integrity issues and train officials, and athletic staff to run their activities. Thereby, it would enable the personnel and admissions officials to know their ethical responsibilities whenever any issues arise. These steps will prevent the future occurrence of ethical issues regarding the compensation of athletes and other organizational aspects. Implementing this action plan will help NCAA solve future issues of compensating student-athletes playing in the major college athletics.
References
Sanderson, A. R., & Siegfried, J. J. (2015). The case for paying college athletes. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(1), 115-38.
Sow, A. (2019). Should College Athletes Receive Compensation? Department of Kinesiology, Sport Studies, and Physical Education: The College at the Brockport State University of New York. Web.
The Supreme Court of the United States. (2022). Sports Economics on Trial: National Collegiate Athletics Association v. Shawn Alston et al.